1 Red Balloon.

…about a special little film called Le Ballon Rouge — The Red Balloon.  It premiered in 1956 and is still the only short film to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.  

I loved that film.  I first watched it with my class of high school seniors at St. Anthony High School.  Specifics are fuzzy – this was, after all, almost a half-century ago!  My students were in the vocational program.  They took the required English, History, Physical Ed, and Religion classes in the morning and then went to the local vo-tech school in the afternoon for training in careers that keep our world going – heating and air conditioning, car repair, cosmetology, etc.   

I was newly minted college grad, with no official teaching certification.  Yet I was certain in my belief that these young men and women did not need to study literature or read poetry.  I wanted to open their thinking to the world around them, specifically to mass media that they engaged with daily.  At that time (pre social media), this meant television and film and print media (oh, a dying industry!).  For example, we examined the nature of propaganda, how to discern bias in news as well as editorials – and commercials!  (I remember saying to them, “You want to spend $60 for sneakers, then understand how the commercials are manipulating your decision.”) 

Amazingly, a very wise older nun, my supervisor Sr. Grace Pierre, agreed with me and encouraged me to create the curriculum for this senior English class.   

Now to the point of this rambling.  One source we used was a textbook titled Elements of Film.  Each chapter explored how music, sound, film angles, editing, and more tell the story and influence our reactions.   Still shots from exemplar films — most were major award winners — illustrated the chapters.  I decided to go to the next step and showed these films in class. (Again, dating myself, this entailed going to the Trenton Public Library almost daily to borrow the celluloid films in tin canisters.)

And that is when I first saw Le Ballon Rouge.   I think the “element” highlighted was the unique use of sound – music to capture the emotion and tell the story —and the lack of dialogue.  Or, it could have been an example of use of color — muted gray tones except for the brilliant red balloon.  Of course, the genius of the film is how the balloon is a fully realized character. *

In Little Children, BIG Feelings, balloons serve as graphic metaphors for the child’s emotions.  I am sure that my inspiration for these balloons came from that film that I saw long ago.  

I have been thinking…and wanted to give credit where credit is deservingly due.  

For those who know Le Ballon Rouge, you will understand.

* You can learn more about this gem of a film online.  Just google Red Balloon film.